This is only the second Samuel Beckett I've seen on stage (after seeing a "Godot" sometime in the 2000s) - which is probably enough to write me off as a theatrical dilettante if by some reason you hadn't done so already (I have at least read "Endgame" at some point). He's one of those playwrights who's a bit of a monolith and an epitome of a certain kind of tragi-comic-life-in-the-time-of-apocalyptic-despair-type of play. In this case, it's an almost-monologue (one bonus performer makes brief appearances and unrevealing grunts from time to time) of a woman stuck in a mound of, in this production, black slag and detritus, trying to keep going through days that seem from the outside increasingly purposeless and doomed. We're confronted with the shallow rituals and the choice to survive just a bit longer, and how these rituals serve her or don't serve her, and her just-over-the-slag-heap-partner.
It's an ambiguous text which partially feels like a tribute to resistance and partially feels like a pure exploration of surviving in hellish circumstances, and this production plays into the ambiguity, Belinda Giblin a shiny positive face who only occasionally lets the stresses blink through and who maintains strength even with half, then later, almost of her body language eliminated. In the intimate location of the Old Fitz you can feel every breath, see every glance, and it's an exposing piece of drama. all the way thorough to the unsurprisingly grim ending. For obvious reasons, it's not necessarily going to be many people's idea of a good night out, but as an experience of a major writer's work it's a very strong example of how it works.
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